We enable people without access to traditional banks (including many women) to expand their businesses, educate their children, save for the future and raise themselves out of poverty. Through Kiva, a non-profit organisation working with microfinance institutions, you choose a borrower to support with a loan of just $25. Similar loans by other lenders are combined until the required total is reached. As your money is repaid you can withdraw it or lend it to someone else. Money that is loaned over and over again does more good than a one-time donation.Join 'Genealogists for Families' - together we are making a difference!

22 March 2012

Meet The Team: Gary Barton

This week's guest post is by Genealogists for Families team member Gary Barton from Arizona, USA.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Retired Xerox Corporation Marketing Director. I reside in the sunny desert community of Mesa, Arizona, USA (with 100 days of 100ºF temps last year). Since retiring from the editorship of our family association's quarterly newsletter I've become happily involved in the Guild of One-Name Studies (a UK based worldwide organization) and am the Guild's Regional Representative for eight mountain states in the USA.

How did you hear about the Genealogists for Families?

Through Dick Eastman's Newsletter. Hopefully my email signature will reach others (Make a Small Loan, Make a Big Difference! Learn How at www.kiva.org/team/genealogists).

What do lending and participating in this project mean to you?

It's a meaningful way to 'make a difference' on a limited retirement income.

Did you choose particular borrowers because their occupations or situations have some significance in your family history or your own life?

I loaned to a USA borrower recovering from the results of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. I did so because I wanted to start at home. Unfortunately $25 is a small amount but it was amalgamated with others to reach the borrower's desired $10,000 USD. She's repaying on time.

Do you have a strategy for raising funds or saving for your $25 loans?

My demographics don't match most Profiler Surveys, but the funds are accumulating slowly.

7 comments:

Gary, thanks for being part of our team and for telling us about yourself. I think I will adopt the email signature you use (Make a Small Loan, Make a Big Difference! Learn how at www.kiva.org/team/genealogists) - it is much better than my current one. Re your Dutch ancestors... did you know that one of our Kiva team (Yvette) works for their National Archives? There is a link to Yvette's Dutch Genealogy Web site in Updates Genie No.12.

I too liked your email signature. How great that you have so many of your 3xgreat grandparents...I have some unruly Irish in mine! It's great that Kiva is bringing so many diverse genealogists together...an unanticipated benefit to the main purpose.

Gary, I've been ordering quite a bit of stuff via Vistaprint which will be used to promote GFF wherever we go. (They're a good option by the way for ordering promotional stuff). I hope you don't mind but I've poached your great slogan "a small loan makes a big difference". I'm assuming since you're "on board" with GFF you'll see it as all in the good cause. Pauleen